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ARBIL -
Six months ago, the main boulevard in the
southeastern city of Sulaymaniyah in northern Iraq
was lined by waste ground. Now, a marble-clad
municipal library, the foundations of a huge new
shopping mall, and a skyscraper to house one of the
region's three mobile phone companies jostle for
space alongside dozens of other building sites.
The skyline of Dahuk governorate, near the Turkish
border, is dotted with scores of ostentatious
mansions for families made rich by cross-border
trade. Even in Arbil, notorious for its labyrinthine
bureaucracy, construction companies are working
harder than ever before.
"Business has increased by over 40 percent since
last year," Nejmettin Majid, manager of the Rozy
Construction Company, told IRIN in Arbil city's
Shorj district. "We've been working to the limits of
our capacities since February, but in colder
mountain areas like Mergesur and Shaqlawa the boom
has only just begun."
It's not just the hot weather which is fuelling the
frenzy. Wholesale changes to the structure of the
Iraqi economy have played into the hands of the
builders.
"Until the liberation of Iraq, the Kurdish areas
were under double sanctions, and the authorities'
only means of raising funds was via taxation,"
explained Jotyar Boskani, owner of one of
Sulaymaniyah's biggest construction companies. "Now,
they have a budget direct from Baghdad."
As a result, he added, the Patriotic Union of
Kurdistan (PUK) authorities in control of
Sulaymaniyah have cut taxes on construction from 5
percent to zero. In areas further north, under the
control of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP),
taxes have been cut from 10 percent to 2 percent.
The tripling of government salaries and the return
of diaspora Kurds optimistic about the future of the
region has also played a part, builders said.
"Before 2003, contracts with United Nations agencies
made up around 95 percent of our work," Rozy Company
engineer Ferhad Ismail, told IRIN. "With money
coming to us via Nairobi, the procedure was often
slow. Now, 70 percent of our jobs are for
individuals, cash more or less in hand."
Increased construction has seen a corresponding
explosion in house prices. A year ago, a 200
square-metre house in the up-market Shorj district
of Arbil would have cost around $20,000. Now, prices
are five times as much.
In such a climate, it is only fair that labourers'
wages should also have increased to US $20 a day,
double that of last year. But one of the reasons
behind the wage hike is the increasingly dire
shortage of both skilled and unskilled labour.
With prices fluctuating wildly, construction
companies are unable to employ specialist
electricians and carpenters as their western
counterparts do. Instead, when they need labour,
they have to go to the tea houses in the bazaar
where workmen congregate.
"For the last 10 days, I've gone down there to find
men capable of cutting and laying tiles," said
Nejmettin Majid. "I still haven't found anybody."
That shortage is not just affecting companies such
as Rozy, which make the bulk of their money out of
private construction.
Philip Peturs, executive director of the Kurdistan
Reconstruction Organisation, a Kurdish NGO based in
Arbil, has a contract from the Kurdistan Regional
Government to rebuild 212 houses in three villages
in the far north of Arbil governorate.
Destroyed by Saddam Hussein's regime, Serke, Juze
and Lera were rebuilt in the early 1990s, only to be
severely damaged again during fighting between the
KDP's Turkish-sponsored war against the Turkish
Kurdish separatist group, the Kurdistan Workers'
Party, or PKK.
"If necessary, Serke and Juze can wait, because
nobody is living there at the moment," Peturs told
IRIN in Arbil. "But we must complete work on Lera
before winter. This is an area where snow can be up
to three metres deep in January, and the villagers
are living in houses with huge cracks."
His difficulty has been not just to find labourers,
but also tankers to bring the water necessary for
cement-making from the nearest river.
It's a growing problem that may in part explain the
increasing penchant among NGOs and their sponsors
for what Arbil-based NGO Counterpart's project
manager Biner Aziz calls the "butter before bread"
option: help villagers with projects of fundamental
importance to their community, and they will build
houses themselves.
It's the basic concept behind the USAID-funded Iraqi
Community Assistance Programme, or ICAP, which has
benefited five NGOs working in northern Iraq to the
tune of $14 million this year.
Aid workers go into communities, elect a committee
to decide what the construction priorities are, and
fund the first priority. In almost all cases, NGOs
say, water comes top, with educational facilities
usually in second place.
IRIN
http://www.uniraq.org
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